Cellulose is a major building block of plant cell walls and provides mechanical strength and rigidity. Wood contains 30 to 50% cellulose, 20 to 30% lignin and 20 to 30% hemicellulose (Higuchi, 1997).
Production of increased amounts of cellulose in transgenic plants would improve the mechanical strength properties of juvenile wood formed in normal plants. This would be a great benefit to industry because juvenile wood is generally undesirable for solid wood applications because it has inferior mechanical properties.
Since many of society's fiber, chemical and energy demands are met through the industrial-scale production of cellulose from wood, genetic engineering of the cellulose biosynthesis machinery in plants could produce, for example, higher pulp yields. This would allow greater returns on investment by pulp and paper industries and provide increased cellulosic materials for biofuel production and fermentation processes.